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I wish I could tell you I'm free of cancer. I wish I wasn't starting more chemo tomorrow. I wish I wasn't afraid of the side effects. I wish I didn't have to see the fear in my children's eyes. I wish I didn't have to hear my son say 'I feel so helpless'. I wish Bryan didn't have to cook dinner 'cos I know he doesn't enjoy cooking. I wish I had an appetite. I wish I didn't have to cancel lunch in Sydney with Fatemeh. I wish I'd been able to swim in the ocean with my sister last week when she visited. I wish I didn't know words like Folfox and Avastin. I wish I didn't know my CEA. I wish I didn't have blood tests every week. I wish I didn't have to press the button in the elevator marked Oncology. I wish I could beat the cancer. I wish I didn't think about my children's future which may not include me. I wish Bryan and I will grow very old together. I wish the will to live was enough to overcome my genetics. I wish I will have the energy to continue blogging. I wish you will understand when I am too sick to reply to your comments and emails. I wish you will understand when I visit your blog and don't leave a comment. I wish one day I could tell you I'm free of cancer.
Thanks to Maryam for helping me find a way to tell you my wishes.
?You haven?t posted much recently?? Really, no way?I could only wish the reason behind this was holiday-making. Life is currently beyond hectic, recently going from consulting job back to teaching and onwards with a complicated move. Sometimes, I find that life (as in working, family events, consulting travel, etc.) can get in the way of reading an overpopulated Google Reader inbox and commenting on every blog and forum across e-creation. In fact and admittedly, I must say that I sort of prefer real life to this whole thing, though at any rate, I love to write, and I?m sort of pining for more precious time to write, whether on wine or a multitude of other subjects.
Pleasure aside, ?you know what time it is, it?s business time.? Who could possibly wait until early 2009 for more FOTC? At any rate, the intention of this post? I would like to see more artisan Godello imported and available in the North American market. This brilliant viño galego white, while being delicious and predominantly planted in the Valdeorras and Bierzo (yes, León) D.O.?s, is capable of conveying that the cool breezes, seascapes and gorgeous greenery of the region are all tangible in more ways than just through Albariño. I truly adore Rias Baixas Albariños, but I feel that little brother Godello needs some love too; and what better a time than now to try it out, since more regional producers than ever are beginning to invest serious attention in crafting these wines, with sights on the export markets in addition to the domestic one. I sort of find the idea of trying them side by side to be fun. Maybe find a nice Albariño (say a solid bottle of Códax or perhaps Pazo) to enjoy and compare alongside a crisp, complex Godello?goes without saying that some fresh seafood is in order here. Recommendations and notes upcoming?
There are not a lot of beet lovers in my family. I remember during a game of Trivial Pursuit with my grandfather Chuck the following question came up: "What vegetable goes by the scientific name Beta vulgaris?" Chuck gave the correct answer, with the explanation that no vegetable could be more vulgar than a beet. I enjoy red beets and go crazy over golden beets--in fact the only ingredients I dislike are those that are bland and flavorless (chickpeas, I'm looking at you). With colder nights, I thought that it would be fun to make a hearty pot of borscht, a soup that doesn't get a lot of respect thanks to lingering misconceptions from the Cold War. Borscht is boiled beets and sour milk, right? Just like the trope that Russian women are ugly, and we all know how that turned out.
Like garam masala, BBQ, pasta sauce, and kimchi, there are as many conflicting recipes for borscht as there are grandmothers in the given culture. Arguments erupt, friendships split, cities go to war against each other on the soccer field. Somehow millions of different people each have the Perfect Version of Dish X, the One True Recipe Since Time Immemorial, and woe unto the heretics.
Without any relatives from the former Soviet Republics, I have no dog in the fight. So in looking at various recipes I decided to go with one attributed to the famous Russian ballet dancer and defector Rudolf Nureyev. Chuck roast, cabbage, carrots, beets, potatoes, tomatoes, assorted flavorings... I roasted the beets before shredding them into the soup, and I increased the amount of beef and tomatoes for additional flavor and body. When serving, be prepared to add two things: salt and acidity, the latter from lemon juice, white wine vinegar, or if you're like me, hot sauce. It's a deep, rich, savory soup, but that necessary punch is best moderated by the individual diners. Whatever you do, don't forget the dollop of sour cream in the middle, and if you have it on hand, a sprinkling of fresh dill.
Frankly I don't know if you can pair a wine with this--I just started eating the soup and the bowl was gone before I thought to try it with the wine. With the earthy peasant heritage beer might be better, but afterwards I relaxed with a glass of the 2007 Bodegas Naia Verdejo. $13, 13% abv, 100% Verdejo from the Rueda region of Spain. Big peach and spice cake aroma, with full-bodied apple and peach flavors. It's easy to get a little tired of fruit bombs with red wines, but luscious fruit flavors can be refreshing in whites. My pairing advice for this wine wouldn't include borscht, but I think it would be a perfect wine for assorted appetizers or a muffaletta: the touch of sweetness and fruit flavors make you crave ham and olives.
Thanks to my friend Angela at Kirby Wines & Liquors for choosing the wine, though at the time I wasn't even thinking about borscht. I can stop by and ask for something like a "fun Spanish white" and she'll select a winner for me. I can't stress this enough: talk to the people at your local wine shop and find someone who works there with similar tastes to yours. Those folks have most likely tried a lot more wine (good and bad) than you, and can quickly find something you'll like in your price range.
So here we are again, the harvest is completed and the new wine is in the barrel. Once more the cycle begins anew, a sequence which we in the wine business live to develop and enjoy. Already we are hearing talk about the miraculous victory of the return, the gathering of the century, the harvest of hope. The bringing in of a new dawn, the hope of a new age.
And during the daytime I am like a priest in a confessional listening to folks in the wine business go over all the sins, not of their own, but of the others.
Today in a little trattoria; a rather immense man, with an even larger ego, walks in and proceeds to sit in the table next to me and my lunch companion, an old pro who has seen it all. This large man is a small distributor and he knows not of the code of professional regard. All the wine in his beat up 30' by 70' stockroom is a small insignificant corner of a warehouse somewhere in the Midwest, forgotten by time or care. But as he has not trodden the path of the ancients, his malfeasance is to ignore the history of his trade and mock those who have paved the Via Appia so that he may pretend to be in the company of those who really give a crap.
But then again, he doesn?t dine regularly with Cicero and Seneca, so what can he know about where he is going? Like so many who think they must abjure their competition, I just laughed at his folly on my way out the door. I could pretend to be a bigger man than the whale. After all, what runs through my veins flowed through the Tiber, then and now. As we all have.
Today I saw a group of college students as they were being taken on a tour of one of the big warehouses, in for a little recruitment into our multi-thousand year old trade. How I?d love to have five minutes with them. But since I haven?t been asked, wait, this is my wine blog, I can take five minutes. Or ten.
Dear new generation looking to come into our tiny little global wine village,
If you are looking to join up to make a lot of money, think again. If you are looking for a career, well maybe you could call it that. If you don?t know what to do with your life, but if you don?t do anything you?ll end up like a character in a Camus novel. And that would be distressing to a generation that has had so much landed right in front of you.
If you are looking for a place to get a free drink on a Friday morning, you?ve come to the right place. But if you have alcoholic tendencies, this place could be worse than Gitmo for you.
If you want to travel all over the world, you missed that boat by about 20 years. Can't even make it up in coach.
So what is it that would draw you to this wine business? Not money, nor travel, nor an escape from some kind of existential ennui.
Well, let me tell you. Because I was once there on the outside-looking in. I really didn?t know what to do with my life. I had graduated from a private university and the economy was in the tank. Gas prices were high, home values were crashing, the stock market was a mess and American cars were the pits. But I remember the times I?d drive up Highway 29 in Napa and think what a wonderful little place that was. Or I?d think about the grapes I had picked in Calabria and thought how special it was to sit in a cellar at night with a bunch of cousins who I didn?t understand and they surely didn?t understand me. But after a bottle or two of wine in that musty, balmy old place, a miracle occurred. We started understanding each other. Our global village was born there and to this day I have been under the influence of a power greater than anything I could ever imagine or take credit for creating. In a phrase, I found my place. I belonged. And that gave my life meaning. Greater than the $100 million bucks one of my sad relatives probably just lost. Greater than the fame my college friend Tony once had, a friend who can no longer find it in him to return a phone call from one of his friends before he became famous ( him, not his friend). I am having a Lou Gehrig moment, and I have it often in this crazy old wine business.
Oh, one other thing ? find a specialty, be it Port or Bordeaux or naturally made wine or the wines of Campania, just find a way to be seen as having a special niche. And don?t forget to love all the other wines too, for they are all part of the same energy and deserve your respect and honor.
Do that and your ?career? will take you anywhere you want to go. And before you know it, you will have been in it for some time and you?ll be walking down a corridor and pass by a group of young folks on the outside looking to get in. And then the large cycle will have made its rounds and you?ll be part of the elite group of folks, from Chaldea in 1000 B.C to Suvereto in 2008.
To answer the question which started this post ? Yes, we are drawn onward.
There?s something about all these old and familiar worn out faces.
CSU chardonnay has gathered a fair deal of attention over the past couple of years, mostly due to the provision of extraordinary value. This release - from the Wagga Wagga Campus vineyards, as well as from vineyards in the Orange region - is another goodun’, if perhaps not quite up to the past couple of [...]
Sainsburys Taste the Difference Sancerre 2004 £8.54 has a round, fruity, open nose with a touch of minerality and a clean freshness. The good, underlying fruit with its tantalising honeycomb edges was somewhat hidden by the very high acidity on the palate. So I thought perhaps what it needed was some cheese to round it out...
First up Organic Wensleydale. This crumbly white is more texture than flavour but did fill out the wine and brought forward the fruit -peachy aromatics. The lightness of the almost cottage cheese texture really complemented the delicacy of the wine. There was a hint of a salty tang too.
Then Woolsery, http://www.woolserycheese.co.uk , this is a medium hard goat's cheese from Dorset and is so tasty. It was the best in combination with the wine too. The slightly salty creaminess perfectly cut the acidity of the wine down to size. The cheese had a decent level of acidity to it as well. It was grassy and had a goaty note but was not overly pungent. Great stuff.
Next up Vintage Gouda, the label didn't give a year or age though - perhaps this is cheese parlance that someone can enlightenment me about? This had a wonderful flavour, nutty, earthy, hay aromas, very fruity in fact. It is a dense and creamy cheese which cancelled out the acidity in the wine altogether and made it seem almost flabby! Not quite right together.
Finally Doux de Montagne, very like a Spanish Manchego with its subtle flavour and rubbery texture. It tasted slightly soured too but in a good way. The wine overwhelmed this cheese though and it had very little impact when tasted together.
IN A DRAMATIC change of focus the Hardy Wine Company today announced that it was taking a great leap backwards - and changing its name. From the end of this month the Hardy Wine Company will be known as Constellation Wines Australia. This is an attempt to change the perception of the Hardys wine name from that of a corporate giant to, more simply, a regional winery 'known for quality and craftsmanship'
While this change is largely window-dressing, it is important. It marks a significant shift in thinking at Hardys. In recent years its super-premium portfolio has been sadly neglected, to the point where many premium wine drinkers (and wine media) today query whether the Jack Mann, Houghton Gladstones, Hardy's Tintara and Thomas Hardy super-premium labels still exist. The Hardy Wine Company has become known for good quality, cheap, non-region-specific fighting varietals. It has been at the forefront of the much maligned 'race to the bottom'.
And for a long time this strategy has been widely perceived as puzzling and myopic - like defecating in your own nest.
Hardy Wine Company President John Grant said today that ‘This is a pivotal time for our company as we embark on a range of activities to move our company to higher ground. From 31 March ... we aim to showcase to the world regional winemaking at its finest.
‘By drawing on Constellation’s global resources and tapping into our generational traditions, we aim to become Australia’s regional wine champion, recognised for our quality brands and winemaking excellence.’
‘Changing our company name provides greater freedom to shine the spotlight on the real heroes of our business - the outstanding regional wines. In particular, it allows the Hardys brand to return to being a winery, known for quality and craftsmanship, rather than being known as a corporation.’
‘We will be adding to our diverse regional offering and continuing our exploration of Australia’s premium wine regions’, he said, ‘as well as strengthening our front line staff, with additional personnel, tools, resources and training’.
Constellation Wines Australia brands include: Amberley, Banrock Station, Barossa Valley Estate, Bay of Fires, Berri Estates, Brookland Valley Estate, Chateau Reynella, Goundrey, Hardys, Houghton, Leasingham, Moondah Brook, Omni, Redman, Renmano, Stanley Wines, Starvedog Lane, Stonehaven, Tintara, Yarra Burn.
So my big sister took me to see Madonna last night for my birthday. It's - ahem - a big one, and it's right around the corner. But I digress. Last night rocked, and here's why: Not long after we arrived at the Oakland arena, we stopped outside of our (nose bleed) section to fish out our tickets. As I reached for mine, a woman brushed by me and knocked my tall cup of water all over the floor right at the entrance to our section. Not wanting anyone to miss seeing Madonna on account of a broken neck, we called out for help from two hipster types standing nearby with "official-looking" passes around their necks. "We don't work for the venue" they shot back, and so we were on our own to mop up the mess until a kind woman who DID work for the venue showed up with a mop. As we made our way past these same two hipster-types on the way into our section, one of them followed us up to our seats and sat down right next to me.
[07/19/2006, 06:16]
The Argentinians consumed in May 2,55 liters for inhabitant Better results that in April the producers of wine obtained on the internal Argentine market. In agreement to statistical information delivered by the INV (Vitivinicultura's National Institute) of Argentina, the consumption of wine for inhabitant reached in May the quantity of 2,55 liters, relying on the general population of the country.
If one was counting only the major ones of 18 years, this number would rise up to 3,84 liters. This indicates an increase of 7,66 per cent with regard to the same month of the year 2005.
While, the wines liberated to the consumption in this May, always according to numbers delivered by the INV, added the 967.503 hl., that represents an increase of 8,9 % with regard to the same month of the year 2005 and 12,79 more % with regard to last month April.
The origin of these wines they were in the main from the province of Mendoza, followed by the province of San Juan.
This increase is justified by the campaign of advertising that is realized at present in the Argentina to increase the internal consumption.
Yesterday, at an event for the local farmers and winemakers, there were a few Texas wines at the tables. One particularly appealed, insofar as it corresponded with what I have been thinking about in terms of what American terroir is.
First the wine. Cabernet Sauvignon from the High Plains of the Texas Panhandle. High acid. Very High. Almost to the point of being volatile. Naturally. Tender tannins. Harry Waugh of Latour would have loooved it. A creamy, almost uncanny, balance. I talked to the winemaker about the wine and related an earlier tasting of grapes from the same vineyard, but made by a different winemaker. The earlier wine had been taken through Reverse Osmosis almost to the point of stripping certain fleshy parts of the wine out, making the acidity factor even more stark. The earlier winemaker told me he had done that (R.O.) because the wine naturally had this aspect of what some folks would recognize as volatile acidity and he tried to ?work it out.? It didn?t work for him and in the process he removed some of the buttresses that held the wine up, resulting in a wine that tasted as if it had had plastic surgery that had gone bad. Fortunately the second winemaker knew what the characteristic of the vineyard was and didn?t fight it, but rather let nature be. I don?t even like Cabernet for the most part, but this was a lovely drink.
Which is a very long introduction to something I have been talking about to wine folks across the country lately. This idea of American terroir.
It started with thoughts about California terroir (where I lived for half my life, growing up there) and feeling something in my environment before I knew the terms. In those many trips from Southern to Northern California going back to school and stopping in Templeton or Paso Robles, Gilroy or the many little vineyard plots along the way, I would taste a Zinfandel or a Charbono and note something that seemed oddly familiar. Something I couldn?t quite pinpoint. But it was concrete. Real.
I know there are critics who think "California wine" is big and bold and ripe and, well, immense. And other than those creeping levels of alcohol, I really am having a hard time understanding what their frame of reference is. Certainly not from growing up drinking the wines of Italy. Or France. Or Virginia, for that matter.
Yesterday, I also went into a natural foods café and ordered a glass of carrot and celery juice. As I was drinking it, I was really enjoying the earthiness of the carrots, the nervous edge of the celery. It was a perfect drink, and it had tons of terroir from the organically grown produce. A chap behind the counter said I should try it next time with a little apple juice. As I was walking outside in what seemed like a perfect California day (in Texas) I thought to myself, ?That would make it fruity.? I didn?t want more fruit. I enjoyed the balance of the fruit with the muddiness of the carrots and the salty-spicy green quality of the celery. It didn?t need to be manipulated with sugar from the apples to make it more pleasurable.
Take a handsome woman. Or man. Lets say someone from Croatia. Or Louisiana. In their natural state, some of us prefer that to a more enhanced look. Some like breasts that aren?t enormously out of proportion. Or lips that don?t look like that got into a fight with Sugar Ray Leonard. Muscles that look healthy, but not menacing. Many of us like wine like that.
A few weeks ago, while in the Maremma, I tasted fresh Merlot grape juice before it started fermenting. It was direct, fresh. The fruit was there but it wasn?t hulky. Maybe that it was pre-oak, pre-malolactic and pre-spinning cones, that attracted me to the promise of the wine to come. Just like the carrot-celery juice. It was standing there in front of you, pure and natural. Senza manovra.
I think California gets a bad rap. From folks who think they know what California wine is. And from winemakers who have mistaken their winemaking hats with their deity hats. I know when I talk to some of my winemaker friends like Robert Pellegrini, how they seethe when people try to reinvent "California wine", as if with one swipe of the sword it can all be commandeered. In the meantime, folks like him have their wines downgraded by the critics in favor of more voluptuous wines with a hedonistic bent. Pave paradise to put up a parking lot. And a tram.
I hear you, Bob. I too, remember the promise of California. And that seems to be a forgotten promise in today?s menagerie of players along the coast, from the numb and number corporate-crunching wine machines to the post-mid-life crisis wine lifestyle gazillionares.
Last February I went up to Stony Hill at the invitation of Peter McCrea. It was the Napa of my childhood, still as I remembered it in the beginning. The wines were a pleasant 12 ½%. There was no overpowering weight of wood. Acidity was healthy, bracing. The taste of the earth was present. That is how I see terroir in America.
And as America seems to be at a turning point, wouldn?t it be a great time for all of us to put down our preconceptions about what we think California wine is, or should be, and just ?let the sunshine in??
One of the greatest experiences that a wine lover can encounter is a wine that stops them in their tracks. I'll admit that I'm excitable in general, but there's nothing that gets me quite so giddy as a schoolboy as when I stumble across a wine that truly bowls me over. Such wines are the closest I get anymore to the emotions of that first passionate kiss in a new relationship -- they electrify me. While the world slows down to a crawl around me, all I want to do is stick my nose in the glass and inhale slowly.
This is one of those wines. I was minding my own business, tasting away through a public wine tasting in San Francisco. As a matter of course, I marched up to the Guigal table, and tasted through what they had to offer, like I have done before at other tastings. I enjoy Guigal wines a great deal, especially their more exclusive bottlings.
But while I've had Guigal wines that have been great, even exceptional, I've never had one knock me on my ass in quite the same way as this wine did when I put it in my mouth.
Etienne Guigal founded his winery in the tiny Northern Rhone village of Ampuis in 1946. The vineyards he purchased to begin producing wine had been growing grapes for as long as anyone can remember. So long that some of the stone walls in the fields dated back more than 2400 years to Roman times.
The enterprising 32-year-old Guigal was no stranger to the wine business when he bought his first vineyard, having worked as a winemaker for several years before striking out on his own. By the time his blindness forced him to turn operations over to his son in the Sixties, he had personally worked more than 67 vintages.
The estate is now beginning its third generation of family ownership, and is widely recognized as one of the top wine producers in both the region, and the world. From its humble beginnings, the estate has grown to sizable proportions, or what amounts to sizable proportions in the relatively small appellations of the region. The estate now owns vineyards in Côte-Rôtie, Condrieu, Hermitage, Crozes-Hermitage, and Saint-Joseph, and buys a significant amount of fruit from producers all over the region.
I'm not entirely sure of the estate's current production levels but they are somewhere north of 340,000 cases, with the bulk of that being wines made from purchased grapes. The wines are currently made by Philippe Guigal and his father Marcel.
This particular wine is 95% Syrah and 5% Viognier, culled from some of the oldest blocks among 6 of Guigal's vineyards:
Le Clos "Côte Blonde", La Garde "Côte Blonde", La Grande Plantée "Côte Blonde", La Pommière "Côte Brune", Le Pavillon Rouge "Côte Brune", Le Moulin "Côte Brune"
Some of these vineyards were planted in the early 16th century. Of course, they have been replanted over the ages, and the average age of the vines now is around 50 years. While the vineyards are not certified, they are essentially farmed organically.
The grapes for the wine are hand harvested, meticulously sorted, destemmed, and then undergo a cold soak for sometimes more than a month before fermentation is allowed to begin in steel tanks. After fermentation, the juice is transferred to the estate's own barrels (since 2003 the estate has run its own cooperage on the property) where it ages for at least 38 months before bottling.
Tasting Notes: Medium garnet in color, this wine leaps out of the glass, grabs you by the scruff of the neck and drags your ass into a field in the middle of southern France and then stands back laughing as you stumble blissfully among sage, lavender, rosemary, and a small lake of fresh cassis. In the mouth the wine is equally explosive with an incredibly juicy core of cassis that is riddled with crystalline, granitic minerality. Perfectly balanced, with the texture of satin, and tannins that don't grip so much as they caress. And just when you think it can't get any better, the floral notes from the Viognier sweep in like valkyries to carry you away into the finish. Please, sir, may I have another? This is definitely the best current vintage of Côte-Rôtie I have ever tasted.
Food Pairing: I'd love to drink this with a slow roasted leg of lamb with rosemary.
It might rain..............but it didn't. Let's start with Pol Roger........ Tools for polo players There are photographers with big lenses to capture the action You'll need a string of polo ponies They come in all colours
with strong legs..... .....and pretty ankles You'll need boots.............. .............and somewhere to sit You'll need staff.......... ............and some one to hold your mallet... ......and to bring you a fresh horse between chukkas If you are lucky you'll get a groom with a beautiful smile. Changing horses between chukkas... ...but sorry no champagne for you, just water.
Girls play polo too
A little action on the field....
....and up close ...and winners Let's not forget the WAGs And finally at the end of the play the horses get a shower. And one more 'cos they are both so pretty
Here's my second look at the new Coppola Encyclopedia wines in the odd-shaped bottles. The 2006 Encyclopedia Tempranillo is from Yecla in Southeast Spain. $14, 13.5% abv. The nose has a little stewed fruit with a touch of herbs, medium tannins, and a black cherry finish. It's a solid but uncomplicated wine that's food friendly in the grand tradition of Spanish wines. The tannins are probably a little strong for Thanksgiving but keep this in mind for stews and braises over the winter months. I thought it was a great burger wine.
The screwcap is large, 1⅝" (42mm) across, ample room for printing a quote. (The silver swirl destroys the contrast necessary for legibility! Elementary design concepts!) The bottles are designed to be reused as decanters or containers for olive oil, vinegar, etc.
I suppose I should take this opportunity to mention that I've got a new camera. For the past three years almost every photo on this blog has been taken with a Fujifilm FinePix s5000. The Fuji was a great camera and I was able to coax some amazing shots out of it, but for a bridge camera (between standard point-and-shoot and DSLR), I started running into limitations with it regarding low light conditions and chromatic aberration when using macro lenses. I recently upgraded to a Nikon D40, a true digital SLR with the ability to swap out lenses.
I normally don't repeat photos, but take this recent shot. Very low light conditions, yet I shot it without a tripod and without any special setup. I just put the camera in full auto and snapped a picture. Due to the lenses, with a DSLR it's very easy to get that low depth of field look. Without going into all the math, it just means that what you want people to pay attention to is in focus and everything else in front of or behind the object is blurry. In the top photo of the wine bottle, the screwcap is in sharp focus but you can barely discern any details about the background other than colors. (This method can be increased or decreased through various methods, but I'm not teaching a photography class here.)
Will the Nikon D40 give you outstanding photos? Only if you take a lot of terrible ones first. Like anything else, practice makes perfect. But out of the different cameras I've used throughout the years, this is simultaneously the easiest and, if I want to explore all the different settings and adjustments, the most powerful camera I've owned. If you're interested, check out the review linked above, and if you decide to get one for Christmas, you can purchase it from my Amazon store, where you'll find customer reviews, accessories, and other detailed information.
Restaurant & Institutions magazine profiles 10 emerging restaurant chains to watch in a recent article, and first on their list is Indianapolis-based Yat?s.
Yat?s already made the transition to ?Indianapolis-based? when it opened its satellite locations in West Lafayette and Chicago?s Loop. The company plans to open nine more of its Cajun-Creole restaurants in Chicago, which would bring its total number of locations to 15.
Yat?s was founded in 2001 by Joe Vuskovich, who previously ran multiunit restaurants in New Orleans then operated a wholesale food company. The restaurants cater to young urban professionals and students with flavorful entrées priced in the $4.50 - $6.50 range.
Tecnorati
So here we are again, the harvest is completed and the new wine is in the barrel. Once more the cycle begins anew, a sequence which we in the wine business live to develop and enjoy. Already we are hearing talk about the miraculous victory of the return, the gathering of the century, the harvest of hope. The bringing in of a new dawn, the hope of a new age.
Today in a little trattoria; a rather immense man, with an even larger ego, walks in and proceeds to sit in the table next to me and my lunch companion, an old pro who has seen it all. This large man is a small distributor and he knows not of the code of professional regard. All the wine in his beat up 30' by 70' stockroom is a small insignificant corner of a warehouse somewhere in the Midwest, forgotten by time or care. But as he has not trodden the path of the ancients, his malfeasance is to ignore the history of his trade and mock those who have paved the Via Appia so that he may pretend to be in the company of those who really give a crap.
Today I saw a group of college students as they were being taken on a tour of one of the big warehouses, in for a little recruitment into our multi-thousand year old trade. How I?d love to have five minutes with them. But since I haven?t been asked, wait, this is my wine blog, I can take five minutes. Or ten.
If you are looking for a place to get a free drink on a Friday morning, you?ve come to the right place. But if you have alcoholic tendencies, this place could be worse than Gitmo for you.
Well, let me tell you. Because I was once there on the outside-looking in. I really didn?t know what to do with my life. I had graduated from a private university and the economy was in the tank. Gas prices were high, home values were crashing, the stock market was a mess and American cars were the pits. But I remember the times I?d drive up Highway 29 in Napa and think what a wonderful little place that was. Or I?d think about the grapes I had picked in Calabria and thought how special it was to sit in a cellar at night with a bunch of cousins who I didn?t understand and they surely didn?t understand me. But after a bottle or two of wine in that musty, balmy old place, a miracle occurred. We started understanding each other. Our global village was born there and to this day I have been under the influence of a power greater than anything I could ever imagine or take credit for creating. In a phrase, I found my place. I belonged. And that gave my life meaning. Greater than the $100 million bucks one of my sad relatives probably just lost. Greater than the fame my college friend Tony once had, a friend who can no longer find it in him to return a phone call from one of his friends before he became famous ( him, not his friend). I am having a Lou Gehrig moment, and I have it often in this crazy old wine business.
Oh, one other thing ? find a specialty, be it Port or Bordeaux or naturally made wine or the wines of Campania, just find a way to be seen as having a special niche. And don?t forget to love all the other wines too, for they are all part of the same energy and deserve your respect and honor.
Do that and your ?career? will take you anywhere you want to go. And before you know it, you will have been in it for some time and you?ll be walking down a corridor and pass by a group of young folks on the outside looking to get in. And then the large cycle will have made its rounds and you?ll be part of the elite group of folks, from Chaldea in 1000 B.C to Suvereto in 2008.
Yesterday, at an event for the local farmers and winemakers, there were a few Texas wines at the tables. One particularly appealed, insofar as it corresponded with what I have been thinking about in terms of what American terroir is.
It started with thoughts about California terroir (where I lived for half my life, growing up there) and feeling something in my environment before I knew the terms. In those many trips from Southern to Northern California going back to school and stopping in Templeton or Paso Robles, Gilroy or the many little vineyard plots along the way, I would taste a Zinfandel or a Charbono and note something that seemed oddly familiar. Something I couldn?t quite pinpoint. But it was concrete. Real.
I know there are critics who think "California wine" is big and bold and ripe and, well, immense. And other than those creeping levels of alcohol, I really am having a hard time understanding what their frame of reference is. Certainly not from growing up drinking the wines of Italy. Or France. Or Virginia, for that matter.
Yesterday, I also went into a natural foods café and ordered a glass of carrot and celery juice. As I was drinking it, I was really enjoying the earthiness of the carrots, the nervous edge of the celery. It was a perfect drink, and it had tons of terroir from the organically grown produce. A chap behind the counter said I should try it next time with a little apple juice. As I was walking outside in what seemed like a perfect California day (in Texas) I thought to myself, ?That would make it fruity.? I didn?t want more fruit. I enjoyed the balance of the fruit with the muddiness of the carrots and the salty-spicy green quality of the celery. It didn?t need to be manipulated with sugar from the apples to make it more pleasurable.
Take a handsome woman. Or man. Lets say someone from Croatia. Or Louisiana. In their natural state, some of us prefer that to a more enhanced look. Some like breasts that aren?t enormously out of proportion. Or lips that don?t look like that got into a fight with Sugar Ray Leonard. Muscles that look healthy, but not menacing. Many of us like wine like that.
I think California gets a bad rap. From folks who think they know what California wine is. And from winemakers who have mistaken their winemaking hats with their deity hats. I know when I talk to some of my winemaker friends like Robert Pellegrini, how they seethe when people try to reinvent "California wine", as if with one swipe of the sword it can all be commandeered. In the meantime, folks like him have their wines downgraded by the critics in favor of more voluptuous wines with a hedonistic bent. Pave paradise to put up a parking lot. And a tram.
I hear you, Bob. I too, remember the promise of California. And that seems to be a forgotten promise in today?s menagerie of players along the coast, from the numb and number corporate-crunching wine machines to the post-mid-life crisis wine lifestyle gazillionares.
And as America seems to be at a turning point, wouldn?t it be a great time for all of us to put down our preconceptions about what we think California wine is, or should be, and just ?let the sunshine in??
